


The Sum of Our Parts

by sam_ptarmigan



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Friendship/Love, Healing, M/M, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_ptarmigan/pseuds/sam_ptarmigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azanulbizar changed them—but some wounds, at least, are mended with time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sum of Our Parts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013/14 Amnesty Period of Kink Bingo. Kink: "Body Alteration/Injury"

After everything, it was only an elbow to the ribs. A shrug. A nod towards the back of the tent.

"Want to?" 

Thorin looked at Dwalin sidelong, weighing his meaning, and then put away the maps with care.

They were camped somewhere in the chalk-lands that tumbled down from the Great East Road. The night was sharp, and the tent had seen too much weather, letting in the chill around the seams. It was Thorin's tent, for all that anything could be called anyone's on the road. A well-worn pile of blankets and a cloak made up the bedroll. The two of them had been drinking, but no more so than usual. He took off his boots and then his coat.

Dwalin stepped close to him, warm and smelling of ale. He hooked an arm around Thorin's waist, and down they went.

Thorin thought of the cold ground beneath an oak tree as he landed on the meagre bedding. The voices of a hunting party in the distance. He thought of the silk-lined coverlet on his boyhood bed, and the dark alcove outside his grandfather's hall, and the impatient nickering of ponies as scattered straw rained down from the hayloft. There was a strangeness that surprised him as they tried to fit their bodies around each other, elbows and feet bumping oddly, as if they hadn't done this a hundred times before.

He supposed it had been two years. Azanulbizar seemed only yesterday, and yet the night before the battle might as well have been an age past. If he had thought about it—foolishly, mind wandering off the path as he put one foot in front of the other—he would have assumed they had left this sort of thing behind them along with the rest of their boys' business. They were grown now. Bloodied. Fatherless.

"Budge over—"

"—Let me—"

There wasn't any sense in undressing. They both wore everything they owned, never knowing what would have to be left behind. Buttons and buckles gave way, hands sliding in between layers of leather and wool and linen before finding skin. His blood quickened at the span of Dwalin's hand upon his bare back. His knee nudged in between Dwalin's legs, and his hips pushed forward. He could feel it, the subtle difference. A muscle-memory, like wielding someone else's sword. Dwalin was no taller than he had been two years ago, but he was harder, the fat of youth and plenty carved away to bone and naked strength. Heavier, Thorin thought, as Dwalin leaned into his touch. Like wood traded for stone.

"Here..."

Dwalin grasped him by the back of the neck and kissed him. Fire sparked in Thorin's belly. His lips parted, and he tasted each kiss in full as their mouths met and pressed and dug in with teeth. He sighed and reached up instinctively for a crest, a shock of hair that was no longer there to grab. Smooth skin instead. A hint of stubble and the faintly raised lines of ink. 

He frowned slightly, biting Dwalin's lip and pushing harder against him. His fingertips quested to the ragged place where Dwalin's ear had half been torn away. He had never felt it before, not even when he had cut Dwalin's hair for the funeral wreath. It had been bandaged then, rust-red staining cotton, but now it was only knotted scar and cold to the touch. 

Dwalin made a rough sound in his throat but did not pull away. Thorin traced the long, straight notch that had nearly taken Dwalin's eye. He thought of their first time together, the nerves and shaking excitement, his palms prickling with sweat as a tussle turned into something else. A similar phantom of strangeness as his attentions had wandered from the oft-bared and well-grappled expanse of Dwalin's chest to the private places below. The sheer outlandishness of pushing his hand down the front of Dwalin's smalls.

"Bloody laces," Dwalin grumbled, drawing back and scowling down as he tugged impatiently at Thorin's trousers.

Thorin helped him with the bloody laces. Fumbling. Knuckles knocking. Cold air for a moment, enough to make him shiver, and then the heat of Dwalin's cock against his own and the welcome breadth of Dwalin's hand. Thorin swallowed hard, locking down his voice as Dwalin stroked them both in a sure, slow grasp-and-pull.

Pleasure rolled through him. His eyes fell shut, and his fingers dug briefly into Dwalin's hip before slipping down. Another kiss. Dwalin's snort of surprise as Thorin played with their stones. Their brows pressed together as their hips moved, their hands trying to keep up. A growl against his lips. A throbbing deep in his belly, a knot pulling tighter. Dwalin came first by half a minute, his stones drawing up taut in Thorin's palm. Spunk spilling over, easing the way for his own peak and plummet as Dwalin kept on stroking.

A moment's ungainly tangling ensued as he gasped. His heel dug into the blankets, seeking purchase and failing to find it. A wet, messy kiss smeared halfway to his chin. 

Then: quiet. Heavy breathing. A tremor in his limbs. A long moment passed, and Thorin came to realise that, as ever, it was him who was expected to have a handkerchief. He didn't, but the blankets were already dirty, and so he used a corner to wipe them both off.

He rolled over onto his side. Dwalin threw an arm around him, pressing up close. The smell of sweat and spunk hung heavily over them both, covering up the sharp scent of cheap pipe-weed that clung to the blankets.

"We need to make an early start tomorrow," Thorin murmured. "Wake me up before dawn."

A vague hum was the only reply. Dwalin's breathing was already rasping into deep snores that rumbled with aching familiarity against Thorin's back. A fleeting smile snagged upon his lips, tugging oddly like a wound sutured too tight. He sank back slowly into the furnace heat of Dwalin's embrace. The tension in his shoulders eased. In time, he slept.


End file.
